The Bajo El Durazo (BED) copper-gold project in Argentina is satellite to the Bajo de la Alumbrera deposit, owned and operated by Minera Alumbrera (MAA). It commenced stripping in November 2015.
The project and now mine is located in the Belen Departament, Hualfín District, Catamarca province, 1,100km north west of Buenos Aires at an altitude of 2,500m. Bajo El Durazno is also located within the volcanic district of Farallón Negro in NW Argentina.
It is located about 6km to the North of the Bajo La Alumbrera mine, and 10km E-NE of the Farallón Negro mine, and at a straight line distance of 1km north of MAA’s concentrate plant.
The Bajo El Durazno project outcrops in a topographic depression, consisting of the differential erosion of the various alteration halos that form the deposit. It is associated to intrusive phases of intermediate facies of dioritic-andesitic composition. The alteration model presents a hydrothermal alteration event with a potassic alteration core that gradually changes outwards into a FDA alteration. In its peripheral zone we found argillic and epidote-chlorite facies.
The dioritic intrusives main stock and the alteration halo associated are stretched in a northeast-southwest direction. In a transversal direction from this northeast-southwest direction, three breccias zones are located subsequent to the dioritic dikes (P4), considered post-mineral.
The geological mapping and the geological evidence and exposed grades along with the drilling program carried out, allows the delineation of two types of mineralization. One is associated to a Cu-Au porphyry type system where the magma location and its subsequent hydrothermal activity, has caused an intense fracturing, generating stockworks with various types of veins. The second type of mineralization with a high Au/Cu ratio is associated to magmatic-hydrothermal breccias, where the brecciation is preferably due to the violent release of fluids from the stocks in cooling process, causing various brecciation and hydraulic fracturing events, subsequent to the post-mineral P4 dioritic dikes.